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Source: Unidentified Historical Recording – Fellowship Review Recording 864 – Date Unknown.mp3 File: helene-h-helene-h-recovery-story-at-recovery-in-the-rockies-ca-1992-archive-864.mp3 Duration: 01:19:37
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Thank you very much. My name is Helene and I am an addict. Hi Helene. And I am recovering from a hopeless, helpless state of mind and I'm still recovering from that hopeless, helpless state of mind and I probably always will be. I'm also recovering from abuse and overeating, undereating, spending too much money and you name it and I'm recovering from it. Most of these diseases I've developed since I've been sober. I've avoided all those diseases when I was using because I didn't bother eating, I didn't bother spending, I didn't bother dealing with any issues because my using allowed me to shut down from those issues so I didn't even know that they were there. I used for 17 years and I've been sober by my willingness and the grace of a God that I find inside of me today on October 1st will be eight and a half years and I share that with you not to sound egotistical, not to make you think I'm better than you but to tell you how proud I am of me.
I am proud of me today and for me to be able to say those words to you is an absolute miracle. I've never, ever been proud of anything I've done in my life. I never told anyone I was proud of me and nobody, I don't remember anybody ever telling me they were proud of me and I always searched for that for as long as I can remember. I searched for somebody to say, hey Helene, you're okay, I like you just the way you are and most of the time today I like me just the way I am and how many people out there can say they like themselves just the way they are and mean it.
I flew into Seattle Thursday night with some friends from LA and it was a very bumpy coming into Utah, I mean Seattle, whoa, where's my head? My head must be at my brother's house right now. I flew into Utah Thursday night and it was a very, very bumpy entrance into Utah because the turbulence were real heavy and I thought to myself, holy cow, is this the way it's going to end before I even get to do what I got here to do?
If you all feel some shaking today, I did not bring any earthquakes with me, it's me, it's my nerves, it's amazing. I sit here, I was telling our leader here before the meeting started, it's amazing how many people look at the speaker and watch what they're doing before the meeting starts by checking them out. Are they nervous? Is she shaking inside? And yes to all those questions. Before I forget my manners, I want to thank the committee for asking me to come out here.
It's a great honor to be asked. When I got the phone call, I don't know how many months ago, and was asked to speak, all I can do is cry. That's all I was able to do. I wasn't even able to answer right away. I just cried because I was so honored that somebody wanted me to come and share my experience, strength, and hope with them. And that's an honor that is given to us in this program. And I thank you all for that honor and I also thank all of you for your warm welcome.
I've been to several states and to several fellowships and the welcome I've got here is just wonderful and I thank you all for that. I'm here to tell you a little bit of what I was like, what happened, and what I'm like today. I don't talk a lot about what I was like because I think we all know what we were like. I don't need to share with you how much I used, how I used, and all that stuff because I don't think that's important. I think what's more important is the feelings that led me to using and how I deal with those feelings today.
I used enough to get me a seat here, that's a guarantee. I earned my seat here. I started using when I was 17 years old because I was raised in a Jewish family and it was at that time called a middle-class family in Brooklyn, New York. And I never felt a part of that family. I always felt like I was the outsider and I always believed that I was not from my mother and my father, I was from someone else.
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And for so many years I looked for the papers that confirmed that. I would always go through for the papers that confirmed that. I would always go through my parents' drawers looking for adoption papers because I knew that I was not a part of that family because I was not treated the same. I was a middle child and if any of you know anything about middle child syndrome, I lived that syndrome. I was not as good as my sister who was older and I couldn't live up to my brother because he was the king. So from the time I was four and a half years old, I was not a part of anything. My father got his king and that was it. I was never special. I was never important enough to recognize anything that I was going through. So I became rebellious and in my rebellion that's how I searched for any kind of attention from my parents. And it was always negative attention. I always did whatever I could to get their attention and I found that if I did it negatively, I got the attention I needed and it was taken away from Susan and Michael.
And so the attention that I got was being beaten and I did that for a very long time because that's when I felt that I was important. It's sick and today I know it was unnecessary and I understand it today but then I didn't know that that was unnecessary because I didn't know any other way how to get the attention especially from my father. I didn't know what to do. My mother was someone that shook you. My mother was someone that threw brushes at you. But my father was the one that that did all the discipline and I grew up hating him and wanting him to die but yet needing his love so bad. And what I did was by not receiving the love from him, I searched it out in the men in my life. And I found that if you were sleeping with me, then you were loving me. And that was how I lived for a long time. That was how I got my validation was through sex. And one of the girls here was good enough to come up to me on Thursday night and share with me that she heard my one of the takes that I had made in another meeting and she said I talked about a scum magnet and I think many of us can relate not just the women but I think the men can also relate to the scum magnet in our belly and how we attracted the scum to us. And I did that. I attracted the scum. I attracted anything that was either lower than me so I can feel superior or equal to me so they wouldn't be superior. Whatever it was, I was always scum. I remember my first true love in life was a heroin addict. And I was real naive to drugs at that time. Because when I went to school, drugs were not real prevalent in high school. And I started dating this guy and he was a nice Jewish boy, just what my parents would like.
You know, they'd approve of this. He was a good Jewish boy. His parents were religious. I never went out with Jewish men because I couldn't stand them. They were all momma's boys and stuff like that. And, you know, for me it was the Italian, the gang member, the hardcore man. That's what I like. Tall, dark, good looking and rough and scruffy, you know. And that was what I was attracted to. The harder the better, you know. So I went out with this nice little Jewish boy and he was a heroin addict.
And I didn't know anything about heroin and I didn't understand what heroin did to you. I heard of it. And every time I'd be with him, he'd be sitting and nodding out. And I thought he worked so hard that he was just so tired that he just couldn't keep his head up. And he, you know, and I knew it couldn't have been me. He wasn't bored with me because I knew he loved me. I had no idea that he was sticking a needle in his arm because I had never seen that. When I, when I grew up in Brooklyn, I grew up in a predominantly Jewish area and I had to go out of the area to find the scum of the earth. And that's what I searched out. In junior high school, I hung around with a gang called Pig Town. And they were a group of Italian guys and they came from an Italian neighborhood.
And we used to hang up out at a pizza place, listening to the jukebox all day long, you know, after school. And, and I felt like I belonged somewhere. I didn't belong with the Jewish kids because they were all princes and princesses. And I was far from a princess. I ran the streets. I was a Pombo. I didn't know from being a princess. I didn't know from being a cheerleader. I thought
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they were all wusses. I didn't know from hanging out with the football guys because I wasn't a cheerleader. And that's all I went with. I wasn't that pretty. I wasn't that blonde. I didn't have that body. And so I hung out with Pig Town and we ran the streets for a long time together. And I finally felt like I belonged somewhere. No matter what I did, I wasn't wrong because I did what they wanted to do. And I enjoyed doing what they wanted me to do because it was exciting.
That level of excitement, it was a high and I loved it. And then I'd have to go home and go through all the same shit all over again. And then when I went back out and I, you know, it was like, I lived two different lives and it was a horrible, I was schizophrenic, totally schizophrenic. I got to a point where I didn't know who I was, when and where. I didn't know how to separate the two. You know, I wanted to come home and be daddy's perfect little girl. And I didn't know how to do that. I didn't know how to be daddy's perfect little girl to get his attention. I don't ever, ever remember that man putting me on his lap, putting his arms around me and telling me what a good girl I am. I don't ever remember him putting me on his lap and giving me a hug and kiss.
I don't ever remember any one of my parents telling me how much they loved me. And I thought like Chris said last night, I thought it was all me. I thought it was just me. I thought I was imagining it because I was so bad and I did all these things. And my sister turned out going to college, becoming a nurse and being, you know, the bride at 22, like everybody was back in those days and having the two kids and stuff like that. I thought that it was just me. And the last few years in our communication, my sister and brother realized that none of us remember being told that we were loved. So, like I said before, I had to search for it outside. And I searched for it so well, I didn't know anything about birth control. There was no such thing as easy birth control.
You couldn't go to Planned Parenthood. You couldn't go to a doctor's office and get it unless your parent went with you. And how am I going to tell this Jewish mother and dad that their daughter is sleeping around with men so I need birth control? Couldn't do it. There was no place to go in those days. And so I got pregnant at the age of 17 years old. And I lived at home. Abortions weren't legal. So you couldn't just go and get an abortion anywhere. I didn't know from illegal abortions then. And I lived at home at 17 years old. I finished high school pregnant and nobody knew I was pregnant. So one more time, I wasn't important enough to be noticed.
They did not notice. I mean, I was pregnant. Give me a break. This girl was 80, 90 pounds for so many years and all of a sudden I got this gut, you know. But nobody noticed. When I went for my graduation dress, my mother was standing behind me and trying to fit me. Here I wore a size 3 and the dress was a size 11. You know, something. There was a message there that nobody picked up. And that's how I was raised. They wore blinders. My parents never saw beyond what was in front of them. They chose never to look peripherally at anything. They never took a look at my rebellion.
They never understood why I did the things I did. They always thought that it was me, that it had nothing to do with anything going on at home. I remember times people going and complaining to my father about kids in the street doing things and he automatically assumed that I was with them and I got beat for it. I always got beaten. He had this strap. We called it garrison belts in those days. Pardon me, that had this huge buckle at the end. And he always made me pull down my pants before he hit me. Always. And he always left moths on my body. He once beat me with a hanger because the next door neighbor got Finkelstein. They were 80 years old when I was 5 years old. You know, they were always that old. And they had a spinster daughter who was old when I was young. And they always bitched and moaned about everything. But they complained to him this one night. And they told him that I was out in the street in front of the building we were making noise and I was at home watching my brother that night and I would swear on the book of alcohol synonyms to that day and My father got so crazy and so out of control. He beat me with a hanger and left wealth on my body and
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in all that All I can think about was he was going to abuse my mother next because I knew that one minute In one minute she would stop him. She would try and stop him She never stopped him before but he went out of control. And so I threw him out of the house You know It's like I had some kind of control at that moment to get him out of the house either he was going to kill me Or beat her and I had to stop it and that was the last time he ever beat me He never beat me again, and I never let him come near me again. I never let him hug me again I didn't want him near me again and when I was, when I went and gave birth to this little girl, I was in labor, and my mother wasn't going to come home at night, and I asked her to come home, and I was laying in bed, holding onto the back of their bed, and the pains were coming, and I said to her, she said, What's the matter, and I said, I think I'm having a miscarriage, I'd never been to a doctor, I never had prenatal care, I never told anyone I was pregnant, I had nobody to go to, ever had anybody to go to, and they took me to the hospital, and on my way to the hospital, in the middle of the street, my water broke, and all I hear my mother going is, Oh my God, what did I do wrong, Oh my God, what did I do wrong, you know, and I'm in the hospital bed, and I give birth to this baby, and my father comes in, and he leans over me, crying, saying, What did you do to me?
So in the hospital bed, I just give birth to a little girl, and I'm told I'm not important again. One more time it's confirmed, and I had to leave this baby in the hospital, and that was the hardest thing for me to do. I got to see her, I got to bond with her for a couple of days, but I never got to say goodbye to her. I never got to do a closure with her. She's 25 years old now, I don't know where she is, I haven't seen her, and that's real painful for me. It took me until I was three and a half years sober to share it. It was a secret I knew I would carry with me to the grave, because I knew you all would sit and judge me.
How can you do that? How can you give up a child? I had such shame and such dishonor from doing that. I couldn't handle it. And I know there may be women in here now that have experienced that. I met one yesterday, and it was so good to be able to bond with someone that has experienced that feeling, because I don't meet very many women that share that. So it's real hard to sit and talk to people about this experience and not be able to get that same feeling back. Because no one could say, I understand what you feel, when they've never been there.
I can't go to a therapist or go to a doctor and talk to them about what I'm going through and the feelings I have as a recovering addict, and they're going to tell me, yeah, I understand what you're feeling, and I'm going to accept that. I can't do that. I'm not comfortable with that. I need to know that the person that I'm talking to can relate to what I'm feeling. Nobody knows what it's like to recover from drug addiction that hasn't been there. They don't understand the difficulties of it. People that are in addictive personalities, they don't understand what it's like not to be able to put it down. And they don't understand when I say, I don't relate to somebody doing one line. I think it's abnormal.
I mean, I had a friend who said, who used to buy, who ever bought a quarter of a gram? I never bought a quarter of a gram. I couldn't understand buying a quarter of a gram. Even when I got started, I didn't do one line. I never did one of anything. The first time I drank and got drunk, I was living in Brighton Beach, and we were under the boardwalk. The song, Under the Boardwalk, is great. They understand that song. Under the boardwalk, and it was Gypsy Rose and Thunderbird, and some of you might be too young to even know what that is, but that was 50 cents a pint wine.
It tasted like piss water, you know, and it was awful. And that was my first drunk, and I puked my guts up. I was sick as a dog, but I went back again because once that stuff went down, and once I felt the warmth inside of me, that's all that matters. I didn't feel all the rest of the stuff. I didn't feel the lack of importance that I felt all my life. When I got out of the hospital after giving birth to that baby, I was in such a major depression, do you think anyone decided, well, maybe we should take her to therapy? Maybe we need to help her get through this? No. My father kept telling me how he felt.
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You know, I never was able to talk about how I felt. I remember Mother's Day, the year after, walking around like the world came to an end. I was depressed. It was Mother's Day. I didn't have this baby with me. I couldn't celebrate Mother's Day with my mother. I was a bad girl because I couldn't do that. What's wrong with you? Well, I have a daughter out there somewhere, and I don't know where she is. And the reaction I got was, well, how do you think I feel? I have a granddaughter out there, and I don't even know who she is, and I don't know where she is. What do you think I feel? And so one more time, my feelings were shut down, and that was it, and I was never going to say another word about anything that bothered me.
I was never going to try because I kept trying. Stupid me. I kept trying. You know how you keep going back to that bad relationship because you know one more time, it's going to be good. It's going to work. I can fix it. I kept trying to do that at home, and I always got put down. I always got punished in some way or another. I was called a slut. I was called a tramp. I was no good, and I was not worthy of anything.
And they proved it to me by the things that they said to me and the way they acted towards me. So I met my heroin addict, and my heroin addict introduced me on July 4th of 1967 or 68, I can't remember, to acid. And I was on my first trip, and I was on the road. I was on my way. I took that first hit of acid, and I was flying. I was so free. We were talking about freedom today on a motorcycle, and the first time I got on the back of a motorcycle, and I felt that freedom of the wind blowing in my face and the air all around me. I felt that same kind of freedom on my first hit of acid, and I knew this is where I belong, and this is what I wanted, and this is how I wanted to feel.
I didn't want to feel those feelings of not being important and not being wanted and not being loved anymore. I just didn't want it anymore. And so I found by taking acid, I didn't have to worry about it. I didn't have to worry about it anymore. That big hole in my gut that I felt got filled. Amazing. I was free. And for 17 years, I lived that freedom. I lived that same kind of freedom. But as I grew up in my addiction, and my addiction grew from acid and marijuana to pills and coke, the hole came back and started getting bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger, and I no longer knew how to fill it.
The men in my life weren't filling it for me. The drugs weren't filling it for me. The alcohol didn't feel as warm as it did the first time it went down. I remember the first time I did cocaine. I was the type of person that if you brought cocaine into my house or heroin, you had to leave. Because I saw, I'm one of those people that saw a friend die from cocaine and heroin addiction. And I got petrified. He was young, he was beautiful, he had so much to live for. But he got a $10,000 inheritance and two weeks later he was dead. And so I got scared. So I figured if I did my acid and did my pills and did my marijuana and drank my booze, I'd be okay. That there would be nothing wrong.
But as long as I didn't do cocaine and I didn't do heroin, then I could make it and there'd be no problem. I grew up in the era where cocaine was addicting in the mind only. It was not a physical addiction. Marijuana was good for your eyes at that time. There are people shaking their head at me that remember. Some of you don't remember because you're way too young. And I don't know if I like you or hate you right now, but definitely cocaine was a mental addiction. And so nobody thought it was a problem. And when I heard that it was only a mental addiction and I knew I had this strong mind and I could handle it, I decided that in this love affair that I was in, that it would be no problem because we'd only use it when we had sex.
And so the first time I did cocaine, it was with sex. And let me tell you, you know when people talk about being on cloud nine with sex, I knew the clouds were underneath me. I felt the cloud underneath me. I was no longer on the bed. I was raised up to that level where cloud nine was. And I was floating. And my God, I was in love. And I was not in love with the man that was doing what he was doing to me.
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And when there are children around, I try and be real cool. And I figure that one of these days, my little son is going to hear these tapes and I try not to curse in front of him, you know. So I try to keep it as clean as I can. But I was on this cloud nine. And you know, for as many years as I, that was in 1973, I think it was, was the first time I did cocaine. For the next 11 years, that's what I searched for. I searched for that cloud nine for 11 years.
And I went through a lot of different men thinking that if I change men, I would get that cloud nine. Didn't work. It just didn't work. I didn't know that the drug wasn't working for me the way it did that one night. Maybe two nights, you know. But I just kept searching for that cloud nine because it was the best feeling I ever had in my life. I never felt that good. And I wanted to feel that good always. I wanted to always feel the way I felt that night because I felt special. I felt so close to God, you know. I didn't feel close to God when I was on acid. I never got those godly trips. You know, no way. But I did when I started cocaine and I fell in love.
And from that time on, I needed nothing else in my life. When I realized how much I was in love with cocaine, I didn't want anything else in my life. The sex didn't feel good anymore. So I stopped having sex. I didn't want the man to come into my life because if you came into my life and you were in my bed with me and we were doing coke together, that means you were getting some of my coke and I didn't want it.
I didn't want to share my cocaine. I am an extrovert, basically. I love people. I'm a people person. I really like people. I like being around people and I like sharing with people. And I loved having people in my life even then. But when I found cocaine, I didn't want people in my life anymore. I knew I didn't need anything in my life anymore. I knew I would do anything that I needed to do to just stay with cocaine. And my life was getting so out of control when I was living in New York. So I moved to California. And I thought, and this is the God's honest truth, I was 20 some odd years old thinking I'm mature, right?
So I moved to California thinking I could live the life of Annette Funicello and Frankie Avalon in the Beach Party movies. You know, because I grew up with those movies and I thought, what a wonderful life they had. They were always so happy. They were always so free. You never saw them drinking. You never saw them drugging. They were just so pure and so happy and they just loved each other. And that's what I thought I'd find in California. But I didn't move to the beach. I moved to the valley.
I didn't know any better. And you know, not only did I have that scum magnet inside of me, but I had the magnet that attracted the drug addicts. You know, so as soon as I got to California, it was like they were right there. I wasn't in California weeks before I found people that used, you know, and it was fine. It was great. You know, I started living with a guy within two months of being in California and we were introduced to some people who worked for a doctor who did plastic surgery, who had the pharmaceutical cocaine in a closet in his house, along with 714s. We all know, most of us know what 714s was. 714s were Qualudes, for those of you younger than me. And they were made by a company called Roar. They were the best Qualudes that were ever put on the market.
Then this company called Lemon came along and ruined it, ruined it, you know, cocaine and koalas, what a high. You know, some people come in here and they'll tell you how horrible it was out there. I had some very good times getting loaded, and I'm not going to sit here and lie to you about it. I had a lot of fun for a long time when I thought it was working. When I was still able to deal with what was put in front of me, I had a good time.
I was able to party.
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I was able to do some things, but then I got to a point where I couldn't do that anymore. And I didn't know that was happening to me. I didn't know what was happening to me. I wasn't aware enough that I was losing touch with reality. I wasn't aware enough that I was just a robot in life. That I'd get up in the morning. I'd go to work. I did whatever was put in front of me. And I know I didn't do it to the best of my ability. And then I came home and I started my routine. And then the weekends would come. And for three and four days, I didn't start on Friday night. I don't know about some of us weekend users. I didn't start on Friday night. I started a little bit before. But I didn't see people for three and four days at a time. And I thought I was okay because I got up to go to work. I didn't lose my house. I didn't lose my car. I didn't lose my job.
I thought I was okay. I was still able to deal. You know, I had money in my pocket. I used a lot, but I had money in my pocket. I had more money in my pocket then than I do now. So I thought I was okay. I had no understanding of addiction. I had no understanding of alcoholism. I didn't even know what it was. When I, when I would drive, when I lived in New York and I would drive through the city and you'd see the bums on the street, we called them bums. We didn't know from alcoholics. Pardon me. We weren't, they weren't called alcoholics. They were called bums.
They'd sit there with their bottle living on the street, filthy, dirty. And if you had to stop at a red light, you knew they were going to come and spit on your windshield and clean your windshield for a quarter. And you tried to avoid that because you knew it was disgusting. You know, they were disgusting. They were this, ugh. You know, they lived in door, doorways. You saw them sleeping in doorways. I didn't grow up seeing that in Brooklyn. I saw that in Manhattan.
It was there. It wasn't where in, in the area where I live. And now today, everywhere we go, we see them. And they're not just alcoholics. They're just people who can't make it today. You know, and that's pretty scary because they're for, for the grace of God, go us. You know, um, I didn't make it that far. I found Cocaine Anonymous before that might've happened to me. Um, I used to sit up in my room for three days and four days at a time with my Coke mirror on my stomach, like Chris was talking about last night. And it made me laugh because I remember that. I never put it down long enough. You know, um, the Coke was on this side. My cat was over here. The cat saved my ass. She never left my side. It's amazing. The only time I got out of that bed was to go to the bathroom or make sure she had food. I didn't bathe when I was in my, um, run. I didn't brush my teeth. I didn't comb my hair. I didn't eat. I chewed dentine gum and snorted cocaine. And it's all I cared about. Nothing else mattered. I thought it was normal.
I had the TV going with the volume off and the radio turned up and the phone machine on. I didn't answer the phone. So when they talk about answering the telephone, what are you talking about? And then sometimes I forget to turn the volume off of the answering machine. And my brother would call from Alaska and he'd say, this is the Alaskan contingent calling to say, hello, where the hell are you? How come we can never get ahold of you? And I'd sit there and cry because I couldn't do anything about it. I couldn't pick up the phone and talk to them. And I hadn't seen him in 10 years. I couldn't pick up the phone and talk to him because I was too busy involved with my cocaine. Couldn't handle it. Couldn't talk to anybody.
And none of my friends, I didn't have friends out there calling to say, where have you been? How come we don't see you anymore? Nobody did that for me out there. Didn't anybody do that for any of you out there? Nobody wondered where I was when I disappeared. Nobody gave a hoot. The only people that cared about me was the people that can get coke from me. And then when I couldn't get it, when they couldn't get ahold of me, then they wondered because they got scared.
Um, and that's how I lived for a very long time. I mean, it was normal to close the shade. It was normal to, well, I had shades and I had braids, you know, and lock the door. It was normal. The other thing that I never did, I never looked in the mirror, never looked in the mirror. I looked in the mirror once and I saw a skeleton. Have any of you seen the movie poltergeist? In the movie poltergeist, when the mother is running upstairs after she thinks everything was okay, she goes downstairs, she runs upstairs
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to get to her children. Oh, she gets thrown down the steps. She runs upstairs to go to the children. She gets to the door and this horrible thing comes out of her. And that's what I saw, it was a demon. And that's what I saw in the mirror. So I never looked in the mirror. I would go to work. I would comb my hair, I would put makeup on, but I never looked at the person that was in the image. I couldn't look at the image that was there in the mirror, um, because I was too frightened of what I would see. And don't ask me how I blacked that out. I don't know. I just did it. It was what I had to do to survive. And, um, that's how I lived for a very long time. I was 34 years old when I finally got to cocaine anonymous. And, uh, I got to cocaine anonymous that I never heard of because a girlfriend of mine was shooting drugs and I knew she had the problem.
She was the one in trouble. She stuck a needle in my arm. And to me, that was a junkie, you know, snorting Coke was no problem, but I destroyed my nose so bad. I had skin grafts in my nose and the doctor told me I had an allergy that I needed to take care of because it was going to ruin me. And I told him he was crazy. I told him, how can someone have an allergy? There was no rashes on my body. You know, I had no reaction. I didn't go into any kind of convulsions or anything like that. How can I have an allergy? I didn't understand the drug. He did. I didn't, I was in the medical field and I knew what allergies look like.
So I could not have an allergy to the cocaine. And besides that, I didn't think that anything that I loved as much as cocaine would hurt me. You know, it couldn't hurt me. And I really loved cocaine. Um, he was my lover, my friend, my confidant. You notice I say, he, he was everything I wanted. He was Mr. Cocaine. And that poem that you hear sometimes around, it's amazing. I didn't write the poem, but I think it was written for me, you know, because I knew that that, that was me. That was what I lived. That was the way cocaine was for me. The only thing I didn't do is kill the cocaine, anybody other than me. I killed the soul that was inside of me. I killed the being that I was born to be. And I had no idea that that's what I was doing.
I had no idea that I was killing myself on a daily basis. When I was loaded, I would write in a journal and in this journal, all I could write about was, I wanted to die. I didn't want to live, but I was too chicken to do anything about it because the way my luck has been, I failed. You know, I would take all these Valium or whatever I had around and I would wake up in a hospital or someone would find me or something. And then I'd have to go through this whole routine all over again. And one day I wrote my parents a letter and I said that this is not a life that's meant to be lived. This is not what I was put on this earth for. And nobody to be put on this earth to be this miserable and live this kind of life. And if I could snap my fingers and be gone, that's what I would do. And I mailed the letter. And I didn't mail the letter to be vicious or anything like that. I just mailed the letter because they had to know no matter what, how I was feeling, you know, and I didn't put in the letter it was their fault or anything like that, because I couldn't think on those terms then. I just wanted to be gone. I didn't want to be here anymore. I wanted it to stop and I didn't know how to stop it. I made all those bargains with God that we all made. I didn't believe in God, but I made bargains with whatever was up there. You know, you get me out of this weekend and I'll, I'll be okay. You know, I won't do this again. I didn't say I'll go for help because I didn't know that there was help. I just said, you get me out of this and I won't do this again. And sure enough, before you knew it, I was right back doing it again. I didn't know how to stop. If I wasn't doing cocaine, I was taking Valium.
As a nurse in a doctor's office, I had the opportunity to order myself the $500,000 pill bottles of Valium. So I had no problem. I ordered all the medication and whatever I wanted, I ordered and he paid for it. So it was no problem. I had anything I wanted access to me. I worked for a junkie doctor. So it justified everything I did. I had no guilt, nothing. I did what I had to do to allow me to survive. And, um, and then I'm at work one day and I spill a cup of coffee on me and I couldn't stand the smell. And so I went home to change clothes and I had given my girlfriend a gram of coke that morning. And she took it home. She said it was for a friend of hers because she promised she'd stop shooting. See, I was important enough in her life that if she wanted
[00:40:06]
me to be her friend, she had to stop using. I thought I was that important. See, I can control your life and I knew what was right for you, but I never knew what was right for me. And I told her that, um, you know, she'd be okay if she just wouldn't shoot the drug. And that day something made me, after I changed my clothes, go over to her house and I knocked on her door and I opened the door and she was coming out of the bathroom, all uptight and all crazy. You know how you get after shooting this. She's just feeding the brains off and whatever. And I looked in her eyes and said, what are you doing? She said, nothing. I said, look, I got real uncomfortable about leaving the coke with you because I know it's a temptation. So why don't you give me the coke and I'll hold on to it. When your girlfriend comes by, I'll give it to her. You know, you can even have her come to my job. She says, oh, I don't know where it is. I said, well, let's look for it. And she was really avoiding me. And she says, I can't, it's all gone. I said, you shot it. She said, God damn you. I said, if you don't get any help, I can't be your friend anymore. And I won't be your friend anymore. And I won't live through this anymore. And I was serious. I was serious as a heart attack. And I left, I slammed out of her house and I went back to work and I couldn't work. I couldn't concentrate on anything. I was real upset. And she calls me and she says, look, I call this thing called cocaine anonymous. Would you go with me? I said, I will do anything to help you. I will support you in whatever you do, as long as you get help, you know, big mother here.
And I was serious. I didn't have a problem. See, after I had my surgery, I had that other year running. I had to finish what I had to do, but it wasn't a problem. You know, I didn't have a problem. Something that loved me like cocaine, wasn't a problem. And I repeat that over and over again, cause I truly believed it. So we went to a meeting, it was a Wednesday night and this meeting we've done a speak called Sherman way and Woodland. And the room was a lot smaller than this. And all you can see when you walked into this room was smoke.
All you can see was smoke. And there were a lot of people there and they were all mingling and talking. It's freezing in here. And, um, and everybody was hugging each other and kissing each other and laughing with each other. And people were talking to each other. God, you know, how strange. And so like the good newcomer she was and companion, I was, we sat in the back of the meeting room behind the tall people. So no one can see us. And they asked for people who were new to stand up and introduce themselves and go ahead, stand up. Come on. You got to stand up.
And, uh, she stood up and she introduced herself and, and, and that's great. That's great. You know, and, um, you know, sitting like this behind the big people and, uh, comes break time and people come up to you and talk to you when you knew. And I stood close to her because I was supporting her and I didn't want to let go of her because I wanted her to know I was going to support her. And they asked me, you know, are you an addict? And I said, no, I'm a normie. I'm just here to support her. You know, I'm her friend. That's real nice of you. That's great. You know, welcome. It's really good to see people helping someone who needs help. And that was good. You know, and I sat there and I listened to what they were saying and, and this guy stands up in the meeting and he shares and he goes, my name is John and I'm a grateful recovering alcoholic.
And I'm looking, I'm going, what's so grateful about being an addict and an alcoholic. And I got five years sobriety and I am just so grateful for that. And I'm going, why, why would anybody be grateful to be off drugs for five years? You know, why would anybody want to be off any kind of drugs for five years, you know? And, um, oh, he was just so proud of himself. And another guy gets up and shares and goes, I don't even remember his name, but God, I love him to death. And he, he says that, um, He lost his job, he lost his family, his job was his business, he had a business of his own and he was living in his car and he was just as happy as he could be, he never thought life could be as good as it was and I said oh this is bullshit, this is just bullshit and God was good to him, oh yes, he said God was good to him, God loved him and he knew he had a God in his life that would take care of him no matter what
[00:45:05]
and all I could say to myself was if God took such good care of you, what are you doing living in your car, you know, because I couldn't understand God and I want you to know that in this room there was a blackboard in the front of the room and through the smoke you can see denial ain't the river in Egypt written on the board and I had no idea what that meant, absolutely no idea what that meant But that's what it said. Denial Ain't the River in Egypt. And and then, you know, you know, when you're sitting in a meeting, you're checking out.
The men are checking out the women or the men and the women are checking out the men or the women. So I started checking out things and I'm looking at and I was sitting over here and against the wall was this guy and he was good looking guy. And so I started doing what we all do when we see something that looks good to us. And I thought, wow, this isn't bad. You know, look at all these men here and it's not bad.
So I came back with her a week later. Nobody heard keep coming back. Neither one of us heard 30 meetings in 30 days. I didn't hear how it works. I didn't relate to any of that. So I turned it all off. I didn't hear any of that stuff. I didn't hear we never heard it because I was so into I, I couldn't hear any of that. So he came back a week later and I sat in the same spot and so did he. And I successfully obtained this person in my life for a very short period of time as we do when we're new.
You know, something happened to me in that second meeting that I want to share with you because I think it's real important. I didn't know from demoralization when I came to this fellowship. I didn't know from. I didn't know to call myself an addict. I didn't know from being powerless. I didn't understand my life being unmanageable. None of those things made it related to me. And so during the break, I decided to go and get some coffee.
And I went into the coffee room there that they called it with the roaches. And I was standing there getting this cup of coffee and this guy comes up to me. And today I call him my white, my Eskimo. And I love him more than I've ever loved any man in my life. In a way that I've never loved any man in my life because he confronted me like no one in my life has ever confronted me. And I will forever, ever be indebted to this man.
And I know we say we don't give anyone the benefit of the doubt for saving our lives. But I know this man was sent by God to save my life. And he looked at me and asked me, so, you know, how you doing? I said, I'm fine. And he asked me if I use. And I said, yeah. And I shared with him how I use. He says, you're nothing but an addict. You know, and I felt that demoralization. I felt that incomprehensible demoralization that I can play handball on the curb with the ants.
I understood then. And I don't know why I believed him, but I believed him. And I knew he was right. I knew I had as much of a problem as anyone in that room. I might not have used as much. I might not have gone to places where some of those people have gone. But I knew I was as demoralized as anybody else in that room. I didn't understand the program. I didn't know what the program was going to do for me, but I knew I needed help right then and there.
And so I kept coming back. Unfortunately, my girlfriend didn't keep coming back, but I kept coming back. And the funny thing is, the main attraction was that man that was sitting in that chair. That was my main attraction to the program. And when they tell you, you keep coming back no matter what it takes, no matter why. I believe that today, because if it wasn't for my wanting to get that man, I might not have kept coming back.
You know, I wanted him in my life. I wanted to sleep with him. I wanted to get whatever he had to give me because I was still into that needing someone to make love to me, to make me feel OK. You know, although I didn't want it when I was using, I needed someone to make me feel OK. I didn't know how to make me feel OK. I didn't know what it took to make me feel OK. I didn't know that just by being me, I was OK. You know, so if if you were with me, then I must have been OK.
[00:50:05]
And and I kept coming back. And one more time, I was in a group of people and I wanted to feel a part of. And I didn't know what I had to do to feel a part of. And then you told me what to do. You said, get the big book. So I made sure everybody saw me get the big book. You know, I made sure of it. I got it. Here it is. When I got home, I put it on my nightstand. And then they said to get the twelve and twelve. And I got the twelve and twelve.
And when I got home, I put that on the other nightstand and I never opened the book, never opened the book. But I wanted you to know that I wanted to be there and I wanted to be a part of. So I bought the books. It was still important to me to be accepted by you no matter what. And I didn't take phone numbers. All the only thing I did was go to coffee after the meeting because I was so frightened. I was so afraid of going home and being alone that I had to go to coffee and we would stay at the coffee shop till they closed.
We were a very tight group back in those days and nothing could split us up. Nothing. We bonded. The class of 84 bonded so incredibly. And we used to sit with our hands under our legs because we needed to stop the shaking. And the only way that we got to stop shaking our legs is if somebody put their hand on our legs. Because if you ever noticed the newcomer shake, the legs, they got their foot on their toe and they shake.
You know, that's what we saw. That's what we noticed. And that's what we did. And we just held on to dear life. We were so frightened. We didn't come in like I see a lot of the people coming in today. You know, all mighty and, you know, 30 day wonder. And they've got something at 30 days that we didn't have. We grew. We came in with so much fear that at 30 days we didn't feel that good. And a lot of us were older. Also took us a little longer to grasp onto things.
But at 50 some odd days, the pain was bad. I'd go home alone. I didn't have a phone number. I didn't have a sponsor. I didn't know what to do. But the pain was so bad that I had to do something. I knew I had to do something. I didn't know exactly what to do because I really didn't totally understand what was going on in the program. And I heard voices. I started hearing voices that were telling me it was OK to use.
I knew my cat hadn't learned how to talk yet. You know, I knew there was nobody else in the house. But the voices were very, very clear. They were very strong. And they're telling me it's OK to use and nobody would know. And I never shared in the meeting. I took a 30 day tip. I got up and said, my name is Helene. I am an addict. And I looked down because I couldn't look you in the eye yet and share that I was an addict.
I never stood up and said I was a newcomer. I never took a newcomer. Well, we didn't have newcomer tips, but I never got accepted as a newcomer. I just couldn't do it. I was so ashamed because I swore I'd never be like that junkie boyfriend that I had when I was 17, 18 years old. I'd never go to the lengths that he went to get his dope. I'd never go to the lengths that he took me to cop his dope. I'd never go to the lengths that I saw people with children sitting in the kitchen, the kids sitting on the floor shooting the dope in front of them. I swore I'd never get to that kind of life ever.
And here I am sitting in a cocaine anonymous meeting and I'm an addict. And at 50 some odd days, it was a Saturday night and the speaker was a friend of mine. And I finally knew I had to raise my hand and say what was going on with me. And I raised my hand after he finished speaking and I said, I'm losing it. Something has happened to me and I don't understand what's going on. I'm not hearing things properly. People are talking and I can't put together what they're saying.
This person over here is saying something a little while later. She's saying something and then he's saying something and nothing that they are saying has any meaning because what he's saying has nothing to do with what she said or she said. And it's like I'm on a bad trip. And what is happening to me? I'm scared to death. I thought I was losing my mind because in those days there was not recovery homes to go to and there was not hospital units to go to.
There was maybe one or two, but I had no insurance. I didn't know from hospital units. So I had to come into cocaine anonymous and do it on my own, you know. And I was afraid that I was going to wind up in the mental institutions that a lot of the people came out of then. And I worked for a psychiatrist and I thought he'd put the white jacket on me if I told him what was going on. And the speaker answered my question by saying, you're where you should be.
[00:55:03]
This too shall pass. And that's all he said. He said nothing else. And everybody applauded. You know, we applaud real well in cocaine anonymous, don't we? I never applauded so much and clapped so much in my life as I do today. But I got angry. And as I was growing up, I was never allowed to show anger. So I couldn't get angry in the room because it wouldn't be acceptable. And I knew that. So I went out of the room.
I am one of those people to this day, unless I'm sick or something is happening. I don't leave a meeting. Never left the meeting. But I went out into the back of this meeting. There's a parking lot. And what I did was I stayed there because the rage inside me was so intense, I knew I couldn't get in the car. And I chased back and forth and chased back and forth. And I had some gutter slot language that I didn't know was still in me.
And I coughed and I screamed and I hollered and I was alone, you know, but I was so pissed off. That's all. Is that all you people have for me? You're where you should be in this who shall pass. That's the only answer you're going to give me. This is bullshit, you know, and I was just so upset. And this young fellow come down and he was a lot younger than me. And he had a couple of years sobriety and he stood up against the car and he did this.
And he was watching me. This was my father's stance. And he was angry, you know, and and I didn't even see him there at first. And I just kept doing it. And when I noticed him, I stopped and he asked me if I was finished. And I said, yeah. And he came to me and put his arms around me and he held me close. And he said, I love you and you're going to be OK. And that's when I knew I found my place. That's when I knew that I was home and that was where I belong and that I was safe.
And I found a family through this one person. I found a family. And, you know, in eight and a half years, that hasn't died. That feeling hasn't died. Oh, I've met people I didn't like. And we all say we've got people we weren't used with, you know. And that's true, you know. But today, if push came to shove, I don't think there's anyone in this room that I wouldn't trust with my life. Or any of the rooms around this country or anywhere.
I found the family that I can trust my life with. And from that day on, I started working the program. I didn't know. You don't wait to work the program. I didn't understand that. Nobody told me that. Nobody sat down and said, here, you've got to write this. You've got to do this. All they preached to me was about God and I couldn't accept it. I couldn't accept God in my life. You know, God was punishing.
My mother told me that. God will get you for this. You know, God will punish you. You'll see. And he did. He took everything away from me. He took everything away from me that meant anything to me. Everything. You know, that little baby that meant so much to me. That was mine. It was all mine. You know, she came out of me. She was mine. Took that away from me, too. So why would I think that some God is going to give me anything?
And so I took the step. No, I found the sponsor first. That's what they tell you to do. And so I knew I had to find a sponsor who wasn't as smart as I thought I was. But someone who had some street sense, because if anyone was a princess from Beverly Hills, there's no way I can relate to that. I couldn't do that. I was a street girl. I grew up in the streets of Brooklyn, you know, and I couldn't relate to someone who grew up at the beach in Malibu.
You know, I just couldn't do that. So I found this lady who I thought was unintelligent. No judgment there, huh? But had some street sense, and I could tell by the way she shared and the way she looked. She was hard. You knew she was from the streets. And so I asked her to be my sponsor. And I knew she wouldn't make me do anything. You know, no problem. She's stupid. The first thing she said to me is, okay, you're going to work.
You're going to go do your steps. And I said, okay, I'll do my steps. I think that when I think back today, I didn't know that I was willing at that point to go to any lengths to do anything. Because I was so scared and I was hurting so bad. And I knew I didn't want to feel
[01:00:01]
what I felt like when I came into the program. I didn't want to feel what I felt that last thing. And so I went and did the steps with a man who at that time had 35 years to grind. And he was taking people through the steps. And he states that he is the naval officer in the Big Book. And he got sober in Akron, Ohio. And he took us through the steps as he went through the steps. And we did our first step and we did some writing.
And then we did the second step, and I came to believe, and I couldn't come to believe. I couldn't come to believe in anything. I couldn't. It was too hard for me. And I was the one in the group that he kept taking into the back room. What's wrong with you? Who says things like that to me? my father, what's wrong with you, why can't you do this and so by him reacting that way to me, I rebelled against him a little more, which then helped me because it held me back from grasping what he was trying to give me, he said, he tried to explain to me how, what was being given to me here was something loving, not something that was going to hurt me, but something that was going to help me and I couldn't grasp that and then we had to do the third step, now I don't know how many of you are in this room are Jewish, but Jewish people do not get down on their knees and pray, we don't do that, all hell and damnation come down on you, you know, Jewish people stand up and do this and tell me I had to get down on my knees and say this third step prayer and so I got tired of fighting, it was about 10 hours later and so I got down on my knees and somebody stood right in front of me and was we looked each other in the eye and we recited the third step prayer and he said, I said, God, I offer myself to thee, he said louder, God, I offer myself to thee, he said, God, damn it, scream it to him, you know, he can't hear you and so I screamed it, but I never felt it, what he was trying to do was get me to feel what it was about and I couldn't do it, my feelings were so shut down and so dead, I couldn't feel it and then we did a fourth step and part of the fourth step we did was writing our character assets and character defects, character assets I couldn't find any, you know, character defects I had about two pages, pretty sad, pretty sad and so we shared them with the people and we formed a group called the Oxnard Group because we were on Oxnard Street and we took people that were willing to go through the steps this way and I can tell you today that if I didn't do it that way, I don't know that I'd be sitting here today, it was the only way that I believe that I could have accepted the 12 steps in my life, it was the only way necessary because I'm so hard to learn, I'm so stubborn, they put know it all on my head when I was born and I came into the program with know it all, this shot my ego, this shot me down real good when I did the steps this way and we did the 6th and 7th step and every week we would go through certain parts of our life and I got to share certain things in my life, my abuse issues and stuff like that but we never got into that deeply, you know, it was like superficial because I don't believe that any of us, unless we're therapists, know how to deal real deeply with those issues that some of us come in here with. I don't take claims to be a therapist and when people I sponsor come to me with certain issues, I'm not going to try and help them with something I can't do, you know, I don't know how to deal with what they all need to go through and I don't believe that and I respect him for not delving into the issues because I don't think he or anybody in that group could have dealt with them. And I went on and I did the rest of my steps and I wrote my 8th step out and I did my 9th step and when I was 11 months sober, I started slipping out, I started losing it and I didn't know what was happening with me and I wanted to use, there was too much pain, there was too much frustration, life was just not easy and I thought if I did all this work and I got sober, it should be great and wonderful and terrific and it wasn't and so I went through the steps again and I've gone through the steps many times in my sobriety and I've dealt with a lot of the stuff superficially and when I
[01:05:02]
took my first year cake, it was the greatest feeling that I ever had in my life. I became part of a motorcycle club, it was a fantasy I had all my life and I became a member of a motorcycle club and we used to go in sobriety, I went and partied with the Hells Angels and some of their cohorts and it was real interesting, it was sick, I was still sick, no one says you get better right away, I was sick but I fulfilled the fantasy and I only could have done it in sobriety. I filled the fantasy and I filled the fantasy with a sober group, it was a sober group of motorcycle people and we went on these runs and one of these runs was to a Hells Angels barbeque and I sat and watched people drink and get drunk.
It didn't last long but I fulfilled that fantasy but when I took my cake for a year, every member of that motorcycle club walked down the aisle to present me with this cake, every single one of them and that was the most awesome feeling that I ever had in my life, up until that point. It was phenomenal. And when they say the promises start coming true and things start happening to you, it's true. Good things start happening to you when you're ready for them to happen and when you start doing this work, it happens. Because things about you change and people really want to be around you and it's kind of nice and I hear people say, well I can't do my fourth step yet, I'm just not ready, I can't do it yet. It turns in my stomach. It turns in my stomach because I want to say, darling, know what you're saying, hear what you're saying, what you're saying is you're not ready to change. And please know this is only my opinion. This is how I feel. I couldn't have waited a year to do my first four step. I couldn't have waited six months to do my first four step. I'd have been dead. If not dead, I'd have been suffering like hell out there. I had to do it when I did it. I had to do it all right away. I once heard someone in a meeting share, oh well I got all the time in the world, I'm sober, I could do one step a year and I'll be okay.
And I thought I would die. This person had no idea what they were doing. I know after doing my steps, I did not want to be the person that walked in those doors. I wanted to be different. I wanted to be accepted for who I am, for the good person I am, not for the know it all I was and the controlling person. I didn't think I had an ego when I got here. I found out I had a large ego. I found out so many things about myself that I didn't like that took a long time for me to change. And because of you, I got the opportunity to change that. I'm going to share two things with you and then I'm going to close. When I did my, my, my, uh, finished my nine steps, um, I had to make amends to my parents. Not for what they did to me, but for what I did to them. I had to go to them, not to blame them for what they did because I blamed them. When I walked into Cocaine Anonymous and I shared with my father, it's my father's fault I'm here. That was my sharing. It was his fault and it was your fault I wasn't happy, but it was my father's fault I was in Cocaine Anonymous. It was my father's fault I took drugs. And, um, I had to go and, um, make my amends. And I had to drive up this highway five, which is the most boring ride other than highway 10 coming up from Texas to California. I didn't find that out until afterwards, but highway five is boring. The only thing that you have to deter you from this straight road is a California. So you get the smell and it takes your mind off the straight road.
It was awful. And I was speeding along and, um, there was a cabriolet, um, convertible and it was black and there was two men in the front seat and we're speeding along and we're going and going and he's passing me and I'm passing him. And, uh, we kept doing this for a long period of time. And as I'm, I'm driving along, I'm talking, okay, God, if you're up there, I need to help you. I need to know what to say to them because I don't know what to say to them. And I was scared to death to go because I never talked to my parents about anything intimately or at all. Everything was just a matter of fact and, and, um, on the surface. And I never shared any part of my life with them because if I did, I got put down or it wasn't important enough or whatever. So I was really frightened
[01:10:01]
to do this, but I knew for my sobriety, I had to do it because I was getting uncomfortable. And my sponsor said, you don't do it till you're ready. So, you know, you're doing it from your gut and not doing it just because. And so I decided it was time and it was Memorial Day weekend. Um, it was the weekend after the world service first convention and that convention in that convention, John Bradshaw shared and he talked about all the shame issues and all the stuff. And I knew right then and there that I had to go and I had to do something and I had to get this cleaned out. I had to be clean. So I'm writing and I'm going and we're speeding along and speeding along and I'm talking to God every few minutes, please. And I'm, you know, it's 300 miles. And so for, for a long time, I'm talking to them, talking to them saying, look, you need to put the words in. They say, you put the words in me that I speak, that I can't speak to me because if I speak for me, then I'm lying and I'm not going to be honest. And this one time I look up and I'm talking to them and the guys come by me and they hold up the book of alcoholics and I'm just, and I said, Holy shit. You know, Whoa. Okay. I got the message. I got the message. I didn't understand why these guys did that. I had no idea why these guys did that. How did they know to hold up that book? When I got to my parents' house and I go to take my luggage out of the car, there's a bumper sticker on the back of my car. It says, this too shall pass. That was the first bumper sticker I put on my car and I totally forgot about it, you know? And, uh, and I did what I had to do. It took me three days to sit down. I was packing my suitcase and my father comes into the room and says, y'all packed? And I said, yeah. And he looks at me and my head down and I said, um, we need to talk. And he said, okay, let's go. I sit down with my mother and my father and it was the most frightening thing I ever had to do. Most frightening. And my father says, and it was such an intimidating thing for me, you know, and my mother sits down next to him and starts saying, well, I've been doing this thing for over 13 months now. And I started off with sobriety, you know, I didn't talk about what I did, but, um, and I said, remember that letter I wrote you long time ago? And they called me every Saturday since, and they still do. Um, I said, that letter was written when I was using drugs and alcohol. I was very, very loaded when I wrote that letter and I was miserable and, um, and I'm okay now, but I need to let, and I went on and on and on and on. And my father started interrupting me and my mother would And we left there hugging and I allowed my father to put his arms around me for the first time and let him hold me and cry with me. Now, if you can sit there and tell me there's no miracles in this program, I don't know what to tell you. That's a miracle. Today, my father's my best friend. He's my buddy. He's my support system. And I love him dearly, you know, and I never thought I can ever have that. Never. But because of this program, I have that. For many years, I wanted to be a mother. I don't know why, but I did. Most of it was because that was what women were supposed to do. We were supposed to go to school, graduate high school, get married and have children. That's how it was when I went to school. Women didn't necessarily get pushed to go on to college. They were supposed to do the duty thing. And I've had my abortions and I couldn't get pregnant for a very, very long time. And when I was three years sober, I met and fell in love with somebody who today I love dearly as well. And we got engaged and decided we were going to have a child. And I got off the birth control pill and I got pregnant. Amazing how these things I got pregnant on June 13th, 1987 and I knew I was pregnant when I woke up the next day and I knew I was pregnant with a boy and on March 8th, 1988 I gave birth to this beautiful baby boy. That's a gift of this program. That child's never seen me loaded. He's never seen his father loaded. He grew up in these meetings.
the time he was 8 days old he was in a meeting, two meetings, he has the personality of one
[01:15:06]
of us, and it's very difficult to deal with it and watch it, I love him more than I love life itself, this is my greatest gift in sobriety, next to my life, it is amazing, I'm going to tell you something, we walk in these rooms and people tell us that we're going to learn unconditional love here, and for the most part we do, I mean, I love you all, no matter what you do, I will not judge you, if you need to go out and get loaded, I will be here for you when you get back, and I will never turn my back on you, and that's a promise I make you, all of you, but I never learned unconditional love until I had this child, no matter what I do wrong, no matter what I say, that child loves me no matter what, and I love him no matter how bad he is, and I don't say that to him, I don't call him a bad boy, and I don't cuss in front of him, you know, I have learned a whole lot from being his mother, you know, I have a hard time with it, being a single mother sucks canal water, you know, and I will say that openly, I do not like it, and I was very angry at his father for walking out on me, very angry, for three years I lived with an incredible amount of anger that I couldn't control, and I took it out on that child in certain ways, I haven't abused him yet physically, but I yell a lot, and I knew that one more time I had to do something to change it, and I started doing some work on this kid inside of me that was so wounded, that was so shut down, that wasn't allowed to grow up, you know, and I did that work for a year, and it almost destroyed me, but you know what I learned from it, I learned that inside here is God, and when I walk out a door, God walks with me, no matter where I go, God is, God is not up there for me, God isn't here, and I take him and her, and I say her because, you know, the Bible says God created us in his image, and if we're created in his image, why am I a woman, you know, so today I believe in the mother father God, and that carries me through my days, it takes me wherever I go, and another thing I believe today, and some of you might grunt at it, but please remember I'm sharing with you my opinion, I believe we were all born perfect, when we came out of our mothers, we were perfect, and I have proof because my child was perfect when he came out of me, what happened, and God's mistake, they say God doesn't make mistakes, but I wonder, he gave us the choice, the freedom of choice, and we made a choice, instead of going this way, we went this way, and that's just my belief today, and that's what I live by, I live with this in here, I live with her and him in here, and I take them wherever I go, I try my darndest to practice these principles in all of my affairs, and I am not perfect, I am not perfect, I will gossip like anybody else, I have sat in judgment, but I work on that, I work on that issue real hard, I try not to do it, the last thing I want to share with you is, I heard somebody share once, and I love it so much, it is so true for all of us, he shared that at four years, he was sitting in a meeting, and he said to the group, he said, I don't know why I'm here, I don't understand why I'm an addict, and somebody shared back of him, it doesn't matter how the jackass got in the ditch, just get him out, and ladies and gentlemen, you have helped me climb out of this ditch, little by little, I'm not completely out, and I might never get out, but because of you, I have the willingness to climb out of this ditch, and see the light at the end of the tunnel, and better my life, and I thank you for that. Thank you.